Point of View

The point of view of Next Year in Havana is first-person, both when the narration is coming from Elisa's experiences in the past, and when Marisol takes over in the present day. Occasionally interspersed are excerpts from a memory or from a letter, with everything remaining in the first person, and the perspective shifting, staying clear within the context surrounding it, and all narrators consistently reliable. Constant comparison weaves the present in with the past, as Marisol thinks back to stories her grandmother has told her, or new things that she has discovered since her arrival in Cuba.

Elisa’s experiences are that of a young girl, falling in love for the first time, and exploring her beliefs for the first time. Marisol finds herself falling for Luis in a way that she has never felt about anyone else, but she is older than Elisa...